Much interest in the superconducting proximity effect in 3D topological insulators (TIs) has been driven by the potential to induce exotic Majorana bound states. Most candidate materials for 3D TI, however, are bulk metals, with bulk states at the Fermi level coexisting with well-defined surface states exhibiting spin-momentum locking. In such topological metals, the proximity effect can differ qualitatively from that in TIs. In this talk, I will first discuss how topological metal as we define it interpolates between topological insulator and trivial metal. Then I will discuss how a topological metal, which is not an ideal topological insulator, is better than ideal for superconducting proximity effect.